Friday, 13 July 2012

Reasons to be Cheerful! Neil Gaiman on Sandman

If you are a devout Neil Gaiman follower - and he does, quite rightly inspire some fierce loyalty - then you may already know this bit of news but it's surely the biggest announcement to come out of the San Diego Comic Convention so far so it's worth a post. Neil Gaiman, having recently announced a new deal with HarperCollins to write three more children's books, has now started a little fire by talking about a new Sandman series to be illustrated by none other than JH Williams III (I'm guessing he may need to take a break from Batwoman). Here's the man himself to explain more:

created a new grammar of storytelling and a cinematic style of motion. Once-wooden characters cascaded from one frame to another — or even from page to page — threatening to fall right out of the book into the reader’s lap. The force of punches thrown was visibly and explosively evident. Even at rest, a Kirby character pulsed with tension and energy in a way that makes movie versions of the same characters seem static by comparison.

Ditko described his and Stan Lee's contributions in a mail interview with Gary Martin published in Comic Fan #2 (Summer 1965): "Stan Lee thought the name up. I did costume, web gimmick on wrist & spider signal".

Alan was born in Northampton, England to brewery worker Ernest Moore and printer Sylvia Doreen. He lived in a poor working class area, and, after passing the Eleven plus exam, attended Northampton Grammar School, but in 1970, at the age of 17, he was expelled for dealing LSD, later describing himself as "one of the world's most inept LSD dealers".With his first wife, Phyllis, he had two daughters, Amber and Leah. The couple also had a mutual lover, Deborah. In time, Phyllis, Deborah and the two children left Moore. On 12 May 2007, he married Melinda Gebbie, with whom he has worked on several comics.He currently lives in Northampton. He is a vegetarian, an anarchist,a practicing magician and occultist, and he worships a Roman snake-deity named Glycon, which he acknowledges to be a "complete hoax"